


half-doomed

by fnowae



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, DEFINITELY ANGST OOPS, Just read this shit, M/M, Wow it's been a while since I used that relationship tag, but he's fine, happy bday Kell part 2, it's a soft major character death warning don't worry, not even romantic but still, well I mean he's pretty dead I guess, well mostly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 03:52:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10677120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fnowae/pseuds/fnowae
Summary: He opens Google and is about to type something along the lines of "what does enchilada even mean" when he decides to take a sip of the water he has next to him.This turns out to be the worst decision of his life.





	half-doomed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kxllington](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kxllington/gifts).



> _Anonymous said:  
>  I had an idea for another Peterick robot AU. Pete is badly injured in an onstage accident and to save his life, his soul is transferred into a robot body. Patrick could try to help him with robot stuff since he's good at tech (music tech at least) and the band has to deal with having a robotic bassist._
> 
>  
> 
> Ahem. Well. I sort of went a _bit_ off prompt. For one, Pete's accident is not onstage. For another...I think the anon meant this to be lighthearted and funny. This fic is...not lighthearted and funny. At all. Be warned. 
> 
> This is my second birthday present for Kell. And on their actual birthday!!! Amazing!! Happy birthday Kell!!!
> 
> And _my_ birthday is tomorrow, so that's fun. 
> 
> Anyways...
> 
> Enjoy!!!

It was really boredom that made him do it. 

They were all lounging around on the bus with nothing to do, and for some reason Pete desperately wanted to look up the actual meaning of the word "enchilada". Unfortunately, his phone was currently lost. (Ironically enough, his phone would later be found to simply be in his pocket, but by that time it would be far too broken to use.)

So Pete did the only thing he could think of; stole Patrick's computer. 

It's not like he doesn't do this all the time - Patrick doesn't care. Or at least Pete thinks he doesn't. To make himself feel better, he likes to think he's _borrowing_ the computer, just without permission. And all the time. So yeah, it should be fine. 

And when he comes back to where he'd been sitting across from Patrick and blatantly opens Patrick's computer in front of him, Patrick doesn't comment on it, so he takes that as a sign that it's okay for him to be using it. 

He opens Google and is about to type something along the lines of "what does enchilada even mean" when he decides to take a sip of the water he has next to him. 

This turns out to be the worst decision of his life. 

Instead of picking up the bottle, Pete accidentally knocks it over...directly onto Patrick's computer. 

"Oh, shit!" He says loudly, which causes Patrick to look up, first with confusion, but then, once he realizes what Pete just did, with a look of pure anger. 

"What the fuck?" He yells, standing up suddenly. "That'd better not be mine."

"Uh." Pete looks around wildly for something to try to wipe the water off. "Okay, so I just wanted to google-"

"I don't care!" Patrick interrupts, now gaping at Pete in what looks like disgust. "You just broke it, didn't you?"

Pete looks down at the laptop. It doesn't look like it's faring very well; he probably _did_ break it. But instead of admitting this, he just looks back to Patrick and shrugs. 

This was obviously the wrong thing to do, because Patrick seems to be even more angry. "I didn't even say you could borrow it! You just took it!"

"I always do that." Pete responds blankly, knowing immediately after he says it that he really should've kept his mouth shut. 

"Exactly!" Patrick yells, practically shaking at this point. "You always fucking take my stuff without asking, which I guess I never told you _not_ to, but you should have the fucking common sense to know not to do that! And then you go and fucking break it, or mess it up, and I'm the one that has to fucking fix it because it's _mine_ and you didn't ask to have it in the first place!"

Pete gapes at Patrick, eyes wide. He isn't sure how to respond; he could either apologize and hope that ends the argument, or he could try to take up a losing fight. 

Tragically, Pete chooses the second option. 

He stands up too, and retorts, "If it was a problem you should've said so earlier! I kept doing it because you made me think it was okay to! So it's actually _your_ fucking fault I took it in the first place!"

Patrick steps back, looking just plain offended by Pete's words. "Seriously? Are you fucking serious right now?"

Pete takes a step towards him, trying to look threatening. "Yeah. Yeah I am."

Patrick backs further away as he continues, and Pete follows. "I was trying to be fucking _nice_ to you, asshole. But look where that gets me!"

Pete makes a face. It's stupid to keep arguing, but he's in too deep, so he does anyway. "Nice? It's not _nice_ to just let me use your stuff if you _didn't want me to_! Actually, it's really just pathetic!"

"You don't even have a fucking argument here!" Patrick points out loudly. "What are you gaining by yelling at me?"

Pete steps to the side and ends up walking into the wall. He looks around and realizes they've ended up at the very front of the bus. How'd they get up here again? But Patrick keeps moving forward as much as he can, so Pete follows. 

When Pete doesn't say anything, Patrick continues, "Why are you even fighting with me? Just for the sake of fighting? Because that's fucking stupid!"

"If you're so certain you're right, why are _you_ arguing with _me_?" Pete bites back bitterly. 

Patrick inhales, face red with anger. Pete is about to reconsider continuing this argument, but before he can speak up, it's too late. 

Patrick takes another, deeper breath, then spits out a final retort. "If you ask me, _you're_ the pathetic one!"

Pete doesn't have time to reply to this, because suddenly Patrick's hands push into him with such force that he flies off of his feet. 

And into the door of the bus. 

And _through_ the door of the bus. 

The last thing Pete sees before everything goes black is Patrick's horrified face staring at him for the fraction of a second before time catches back up with them and the bus moves onward. 

~*~

Pete comes to with the feeling he's been out for a while. 

He keeps his eyes closed at first, trying to figure out where he is and what's going on. When his mind offers him little helpful information, he opens his eyes. 

He immediately recognizes that he's in a hospital room. And just as soon as he can wonder why he's here, he hears yelling outside the closed door of the room. 

"This is _not_ what I fucking meant!"

Pete frowns. He's still too out of it to match that voice to a person, but he knows he recognizes it. 

Then, a second, calmer voice that he doesn't recognize. "I'm sorry, but we've been over this. If you can't quiet down, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. You said-"

Then the first voice again: " _I know what I fucking said_! But you didn't tell me what you meant!"

Then the second voice: "If you know what you said, you should know that you explicitly told us to 'do literally anything'."

"At least let me in there." The first person responds, much quieter this time. 

Now Pete can place the voice; it's Patrick. Of course it is. But the conversation itself still seems nonsensical to him. 

"We've told you again and again. We are allowing no visitors until we have had a chance to make sure he knows what's going on." The second person responds matter-of-factly. Pete suspects he's who they mean by "he". 

"Sure. Just like you made sure _I_ knew what was going on." Patrick replies bitterly, and then Pete can hear receding footsteps and an aggravated sigh from the unknown second person. 

Then the door opens, revealing a doctor with long, braided red hair and bright pink glasses. She seems pleasantly surprised that Pete is awake. 

"Ah, you're up." She says cheerily, in a voice clearly belonging to the second person from the hall. 

Any hope Pete had for _not_ being in deep shit is smashed by her tone. He knows doctors, and he knows the I'm Going To Smile At You And Act Happy So You'll Feel Better When I Tell You About How Fucked You Are voice. And this doctor is definitely using that voice. 

"Uh...yes?" Pete responds. 

The doctor continues to beam at him. "Well, I'm Doctor Heinz. It's nice to officially meet you. While you're conscious, that is."

Doctor Heinz winks like she's made a funny joke, but Pete isn't laughing. 

"Cut the bullshit." He says, which seems to surprise the doctor. "Something's obviously extremely wrong with me, so just tell me already and spare me the suspense."

Doctor Heinz's smile falls. "Oh. Well, um...yes."

Pete gives her a look, hoping she'll take the cue and go on. She does. 

"You had a bit of an accident." She begins, dreadful smile back on her face like whatever "accident" Pete had makes her extremely happy. Pete can't look at her smile any longer, so instead he decides to look at his arm. This turns out to be more entertaining than expected, because he immediately starts to feel like something's wrong with it. He just can't figure out what. 

When Pete doesn't say anything, Doctor Heinz continues. "You somehow managed to fall out of a moving bus."

Pete remains focused on his arm, but he's unable to focus on his What's Wrong With My Arm game anymore. After what the doctor said, everything comes flooding back. 

How he and Patrick had a fight. How Patrick pushed him. _Out of a moving bus_. 

Pete looks back up to Doctor Heinz. He's suddenly certain he's found the problem with his arm: it's completely intact. 

"Yeah, about that..." He says slowly. "Uh...how am I not fucking dead?"

"Well." The doctor's smile looks even bigger and faker than ever. "Well, technically...you are."

"I'm sorry, what?" Pete continues to stare at her. He has to have heard that wrong. 

"Scientifically speaking, you are, in fact, considered dead." Doctor Heinz repeats, still smiling. Now it just looks creepy. 

Pete just stares at her some more. 

The doctor once again takes the silence as a cue to go on. "You took a very bad fall out of that bus and sustained a lot of serious, or even fatal wounds. Your body was damaged beyond repair."

"Uh." Pete doesn't want to ask, but he has to. "What do you mean 'your body was damaged beyond repair'? Then..." He holds up his arm as emphasis. "Then...what's this?"

Doctor Heinz is impossibly silent for a moment, and Pete considers in wonder that the sickeningly friendly doctor may actually be at a loss for words. Finally, she speaks again. 

"Well, frankly, I hate to say these words to anyone, but there was nothing we could do." She begins. "We did have one... _experimental_ option. And we were given the go-ahead. So we took it."

Pete remembers the conversation he overheard earlier. That's suddenly making a lot more sense. Slowly, picking his words one at a time, he asks, "So...what exactly did you do?"

"Well, again, it was _very_ experimental, but obviously successful nonetheless." The doctor replies, still eerily cheerily. "The thing is, since your body was so damaged, but you were still medically alive, at least for the time being, we simply...transferred you to a synthetic body."

Pete frowns. "Sorry, what?"

"Well, in simpler terms...to save you, we had to give you a robotic body." Doctor Heinz says, as if this is the most normal news ever given. 

Pete continues to stare at her. Slowly - _very_ slowly - he looks back at his arm. Now he realizes what he thought was off. His arm seems just _barely_ the wrong color, and it's actually slightly _shiny_ , like some kind of weirdly realistic doll arm. And that's very much what it's like - it just looks _fake_. And oh god, _what did she just say to him_?

This is when he starts screaming. 

~*~

Pete doesn't realize he'd blacked out until he comes to again. He has a sinking feeling that he hadn't just passed out like any normal person would - because he's not "any normal person". Not anymore. But he doesn't want to dwell on what actually could've happened, so he just tells himself he probably passed out. It makes him feel a little better. 

It takes him a moment to realize someone else is in the room. He thinks for a moment that Doctor Heinz is back, but when he turns to look, it's actually Patrick. 

Honestly, Patrick looks terrible. His hair is a mess, his hat is askew and barely clinging to his head anyway, and he has dried tear trails on his face, which is red like he's been doing the crying that caused the trails recently (Pete suspects he has). He's reading a book that Pete can't see the title of and visibly shaking. 

He seems to notice Pete staring at him, but all he does to acknowledge Pete is to bitterly say, "They finally let me in here." He doesn't even look up from his book. 

Pete doesn't know how to reply to that. He just keeps staring at Patrick, trying to get his thoughts to work as words that he can say and not ruin everything - not that everything isn't already ruined. 

Finally, Patrick speaks again, eyes still not leaving his book. 

"They said you can leave any time you want. Technically they don't have a reason to keep you anymore."

Pete just keeps staring at him, still unsure what to say. 

Patrick starts again, voice shaking. "So, like, anytime you want to leave-"

"Hey, wait." Pete interrupts. 

Patrick finally turns to look at him. He's got an unreadable look on his face and he looks like he might cry again. "Yeah?" He asks quietly. 

"Are you okay?" Pete asks, just as quietly. 

Patrick suddenly decides that he's interested in his book again, and rather than replying, he says, "Apparently they don't want you being left on your own for a month. Just in case. So you've got to stay with someone." Under his breath, he adds, "I drew the short straw."

Pete tries not to be hurt by the fact that Patrick seems unhappy to have to stay with him. But it's just circumstantial. At least, that's what he tells himself. 

Instead of voicing any of this aloud, he just asks, "Can we leave now?"

"Yeah." Patrick answers shortly, eyes still trained diligently on his book. He doesn't seem to actually be reading it, though. 

"Oh. Okay." Pete says, quietly, then attempts to get out of the bed. This attempt is stopped by his inability to get his right foot off the bed. Something keeps holding it back. 

"Oh, right." Patrick says, giving him a look. He gets up and walks over, moving the sheets off of Pete's foot to reveal a fucking _cable_ that's _plugged in_ to the bottom of his foot. Pete gapes at it as Patrick simply tugs it out, leaving a small hole. 

"What the fuck-" Pete begins.

"Charging cable, dipshit." Patrick replies concisely, like this was completely obvious and completely normal. 

"Oh. Uh...right." Pete can't quite wrap his head around that, so he decides not to try, at least for now. 

Pete seems to already have a t-shirt and jeans on (which he supposes is a bit weird, but so is the rest of this), and before he can say anything else Patrick is thrusting a pair of shoes at him too. They're his shoes, but not the ones he was last wearing. Then again, he doubt he'll ever see the shoes he was last wearing again. He shudders at the thought. 

"Do you want to leave or what?" Patrick asks, and Pete nods, quickly moving to get his shoes on. Patrick throws a coat at him too (this one isn't his), and Pete puts it on too without a word. 

Then, once Pete has stood up, Patrick just turns and walks out, muttering "come on" under his breath. 

Pete stares blankly after him for a moment before following, doing his best to figure out what the _hell_ is going on.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, headcanons about my fics/prompts/ideas are always welcome to be sent to my Tumblr: vicesandvelociraptors. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
